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www.canadianlawyermag.com 11 Name: Shannon Salter Current position: » 2014-current: chairwoman, Civil Resolution Tribunal Previous positions: » 2011-2014: vice chairwoman, Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal » 2006-2009: litigation associate, Farris Vaughan Wills & Murphy LLP » 2005-2006: judicial law clerk, Supreme Court of British Columbia » Summer 1998: policy analyst, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade PROFILE These interests naturally led Salter to law school, which she completed in 2005 when she graduated from UBC's faculty of law. She then worked as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of British Columbia and took a posi- tion as an associate at Farris Vaughan Wills & Murphy LLP. While she speaks positively about both jobs, they also highlighted the real-life problems in the justice system. Clerking, Salter says, helped show "how inefficient and antiquated a lot of the processes were and continue to be," and in private practice it was "demoralizing to see cases that had been with the firm for five or six years and continued to be with the firm for five or six years after I left." Salter took a leave from private practice, studying for a master's degree in Toronto with her husband, who is also a lawyer. She then had her first child, balancing academic demands with her new role as a mother. Although she originally intended to return to private practice, she realized law firms are "not at all conducive to accommodating the lives of people with caregiving responsibilities," and she instead took a position as vice chair- woman of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, where she worked until 2014. Salter then saw a posting for a position at the CRT, which initially felt out of her reach. "I think a lot of women have [felt that way], when they're presented with an opportunity like the one I was, and it was only because other women in my life encouraged me to Shannon Salter speaking about the Civil Resolution Tribunal at the Supreme Court of Canada (top), the Council of State in the Hague, Netherlands (bottom left) and the Industrial Revolution conference in Yerevan, Armenia (bottom right).